As part of our ongoing series, "Building the Wired Home," we've been experimenting with what could be a sea-change in the whole concept of a home computer. Home computers, of course, have long ago become commonplace, and computers have even taken on some roles that used to be delegated to standalone consumer electronics, such as audio and video storage and playback. They've gone from being exotic oddities to ever-more-useful home appliances. Interestingly, though, as our home computers have become more powerful, sophisticated, and useful, they have also become decentralized and have, in most inefficient fashion, been chopped up and redistributed around the house. "Read more" to learn how our experiment worked out.
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Member since:
2006-07-30
I couldn't have said it better myself. However, since you can't fine every second citizen a bazillion dollars for each ripped file or throw him in jail, I still hope that the law will finally adapt to reality.
Regarding the home automation, surveillance, and entertainment stuff - I think it's really cool. Mostly pointless but awesome nevertheless.
Seeing the small price and relatively low power consumption of netbooks I see no reason why there shouldn't be a real PC integrated into every TV, game console, etc. in the near future. These devices could all work independently until they need additional storage and or processing power and then request some from the server in the the basement.
Member since:
2005-06-29
You stated that you decided against a Mac-centric setup for various reasons. I completely understand wanting this project to have a broader audience, with Linux and Windows being much more accessible to most folks. Personally if those were my two choices I'd stay away from Windows for security and format-restriction issues. So what would I do with a similar project in the house I am about to buy?
First, I'd consider a used Power Mac G5, or, if affordable, a refurbished Mac Pro as the "brain". Remember, we're trying to stay cost-effective here and since I'm not having free (errr, sponsored) hardware thrown at me, I'm looking for a good cost-to-returns ratio. Either generation of the Mac workstation can handle multiple storage solutions, including RAID. The Mac Pro can also be set up with high performance SAS drives, though that will not necessarily be cost effective. Video and RAM upgrades, if necessary, are quite painless as well.
One of your goals, though not quite met, was to have as few computers or computer-like devices in use at the endpoints. As you discovered, that is not likely to happen with the combination of today's overabundant choices of content providers and limited access to them based on location. I happen to be lucky enough to live in the center of town, and I have my choice of cable or DSL internet. Given that we use cellphones for voice calls, and I can get a good bundle with cable, I'll go with that. Since we don't watch much television (mostly the big networks and the occasional Sci-Fi Channel binge) I can get by with basic HD cable service along with high speed internet.
So what about time-shifting? I have two options: Install a TV capture card into the brain, or run a cable line to each television in the home. But wait; this is a small house and mine is a small family, so we will have one big TV in the family room and that's it. So, here's where my Mac mini comes in. Most modern LCD televisions come with DVI and/or HDMI inputs. Now, I can decide to string a cat5 cable to the mini and run all video streamed off the server through the mini to the TV, or I can string a coaxial cable as well and use a USB capture card to record and watch TV directly on the mini. It also covers my music and rented DVD needs (the house is a two minute walk from the best video store in town).
As this is an older house, built during the Korean War, we're going to be bringing the wiring up to code before moving in. This will provide an opportunity for me to wire the house for the present and future, just as you did in yours. With a smaller budget and no freebies, I'm looking forward to having a Mac-centric "wired" home. Of course, my fiancee will be happy just to remain wireless with her Pismo; she doesn't care what I do with the rest of the Macs we own.
And yes, I realize that even for Mac fanatics, an all-Apple solution like this isn't necessarily the best. It will work for us because it is such a small house in a great location, and I already own a lot of the equipment that will be used.
Edited 2008-10-28 00:15 UTC
Member since:
2006-02-09
"...if I were to rip my DVDs and put them on a media server, I would be in a legal gray area."
This was settled by the Supreme Court decades ago. You are simply too spineless to exercise your 'fair use' rights because of an unreasonable fear of prosecution.
Get a new job.
Member since:2008-03-17
I would have to agree: storm in a teacup...
It's not like to copyright police are going to storm into your house and arrest you. There are plenty of tools on the net that make ripping dvds an absolute breeze.
What you might be more wary of is downloading illegal/pirated content. The only reason I do it is due to the reasons outlined in the article:
Official content is just too difficult to format/time/place shift.
I watch tv shows on my ps3 streamed from my media server. I get torrents that automatically come from an rss feed, easy and no fuss. So from my perspective railing against media unavailability is pretty much void, although I can understand those that do not want to follow my methods.
Member since:1997-10-01
As stupid as it may seem, simply by virtue of the fact that DVDs have a rudimentary copy protection scheme, breaking that and copying them is a violation of the DMCA in the United States. As I specified in the article, that doesn't make it morally wrong. But it is technically illegal at this time.
Member since:2006-01-14
The only one being a tool here is you. The DMCA makes ripping dvd's illegal. If it wasn't, then the MPAA could not have had sales of RealDVD stopped. But they did. Because it IS illegal. Now maybe no one is ever going to stop you. But if your ever under suspicion for any other major crime, you can bet they will use it as a stick to poke you with.
Member since:
2005-07-06
It seems pretty clear to me how to fix your video-streaming issues... Just use a PC at each end instead of some proprietary satellite box! Preferably a cheap, small, lower-power PC. Something like the Mac mini. While you're at it you can put an eyeTV on each one and have them record shows onto your server, just like you wanted. Problem solved.
Member since:
2008-10-28
Hi,
have you heard of project called LinuxMCE ?
http://www.linuxmce.org/
I'm using it to automate my home (turning lights and applicances on/off), for security (alarm and video surveilance) and as a multi-room media center.
For full demonstration of LinuxMCE features please see this video:
http://snipurl.com/linuxmce [video_google_com]
Cheers,
Valent.
Member since:
2005-06-29
I've been thinking about doing something similar to my apartment ever since I go it (over two years ago), but even during the planning stages I run into a lot of problems.
My goal is simple: have a central computer in my walk-in closet (located centrally in my apartment) that would handle all incoming signals and storage and printing. I run into countless problems.
I have two types of TV coming into my house: old-fashioned analogue cable, and digital cable (with the high-definition channel package). I have the only compatible HD digital cable TV decoder on sale in The Netherlands (ridiculously expensive), but it's only a single-tuner, and doesn't have a built-in hard drive - in other words, I'd need to buy a separate hard drive recorder, and even then I'd only be able to OR record, OR watch TV (or watch and record the same channel, but that kind of defeats the point).
The old analogue TV is part of my all-in-one contract at my ISP/cable company (phone-over-IP/internet/analogue+digital TV), and can't be removed from it - which turned out to be a good thing sine I can only hook one TV up to my decoder, meaning the TV in my bedroom gets analogue input - it's an old 37cm CRT TV. I have a HD-ready small LCD TV left over, but it's an American model, and doesn't come with PAL. So, the only way for me to use it would be to hook it up to my decoder - but since that thing can only take one device at a time, I'd need to buy another decoder. And another contract. Fcuk that shit.
That's just one of the issues.
So, now I've settled on making my desktop computer the central computer. I've hooked up a large USB drive, shared it across the network, and now I can use my laptops (Powerbook G4 and the Aspire One) to access its contents all across my apartment. The downside of course is that it doesn't record TV, and my desktop has to be running all the time, in my living room.
I don't want to get a NAS or something similar because it would be just another device that can only do ONE thing. If I were to place any computing device in that closet, it should be able to handle everything.
Member since:
2006-04-07
Member since:
2005-07-06
In the US you can get cable boxes with Firewire output enabled. This is an FCC mandate. Don't take no from the cable company and complain until they give you one. They are legally required to. MythTV supports Firewire cable boxes. Firewire can come into the PC and be resent as Media Center type TV over Ethernet. Because of DRM is it random which channels this will work with, it is different on each cable system.
Plan B, DRM sucks. I have paid for this signal inside of my home and I want to do what I want with it. Get multiple cable boxes in the basement. Put a Slingbox on each one an redigitize the component outputs. Now you can switch this around on Ethernet inside your house. It is so stupid that you have to do something like this.
The idea here is that your video is unencrypted H.264 AVC inside the house.
Put a media center extender on each TV like a DSM-520. Now the TVs can show movies from the central hard drive, the rebroadcast TV signals, security camera (get IP based ones), etc. It is so cheap to build a Media Center Extender into an HDTV and put an Ethernet jack onto it, why don't the vendors do this? (they don't because all of the content is DRM'd).
I'm in a FIOS area but I think ATT Uverse is the closest to this vision. ATT Uverse is TV over IP.
The current analog model has all of the channels appearing at the TV and then the TV decides which one to watch. Instead, the TV should be tuned to a single channel and the remote server box decides which stream to feed it. Read about SDV - switched digital video.
To things to remember.
1) TV is simply a playlist you don't control.
2) The customer for TV is the advertisers, you are just a side effect.
I watch about one hour a week of cable TV. If the wife would let me I would disconnect it.
Member since:
2005-07-06
Going from the description in the article, wouldn't it be possible to put a tuner card into the server and hook the satellite directly into it? Then you could use something like MythTV (or Windows Media Center for that matter), and use the existing DVI cabling to output to your TV(s).
The biggest possible problem I can think of (playing devil's advocate with myself) is that I'm not sure how well a tuner card / desktop-based PVR software works with satellite (E.g., it might not be possible to actually change the channel from the computer) - and there might be conflicts between the computer-based PVR and the set-top PVRs.
Or there's the low-tech method that myself and my last roommate went with: get an old PC in the 1-2Ghz range, stick an 802.11N card in it, use RDP/VNC to connect to the server, and use VLC to stream and receive the video. With a wireless keyboard attached to the "receiver" computer, that worked fairly well.
Member since:
2005-07-06
Member since:
2007-07-27
SUN has ultra thin Linux/Solaris/windows clients called SunRay that uses 4 watt each: no fans, no hard drive. It is a small box the size of VHS tape, weighs 0.38kg. Cost 200 USD. It only sends mouse + keys into the server and the server generates bitmaps and sends them to the SunRay. The SunRay doesnt run any applications at all, it is only an I/O device. It has no CPU, no RAM (that runs applications). Impossible to upgrade. Instead you upgrade the server and all SunRays are upgraded. I just connect SunRay to a switch/hub and 5 secs later a login screen shows. You think you sit at the server, it's that responsive (uses 300kbit/sec bandwidth). MTBF is 22 years. If you need more power, upgrade the server. A Pentium III with 1GB RAM is sufficient for simpler use, listen to mp3, surf, etc.
Connect them to a Linux or Solaris server with the free SunRay Server Software. It is possible to run Windows with RDP and VMware too.
A dual core + 4 GB RAM in the basement and 4-5 SunRay in your house, all connected to the server: listen to your MP3 collection, surf the web, etc. You save lots of energy and they are really small. You could have a drawer full of SunRays and when the need for another workstation arises, you just plugin another SunRay to the switch/hub. If you have more RAM and a quad core, you could basically throw out all your neighbours computers and give them a SunRay connected to your server via TCP/IP. They all access the MP3 collection, surf the web, etc.
I have such a solution. I prefer Solaris + ZFS as a home server. But you can use 100% Linux instead. You can get refurbished SunRays for 40 USD at ebay.
Really cool. There are lots of blogs on this.
Edited 2008-10-30 07:19 UTC